Sakura Haruno is the main female protagonist of the story. She's a student at Konoha Gakure and is on the last year of school. She's eighteen years old and was introduced together with the other main characters on chapter 1.

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Inside Sakura's mind exists an "Inner Sakura", a black version of herself which often appears in her thoughts and yells her opinion. Apart from comic relief, Inner Sakura provides Sakura's true opinion about matters, frequently those which she doesn't dare to tell another person, not even her friends.In the "Inner Sakura",she says bad things to about others.According to Naruto,Sakura is also mean to othersEdit

However,Sakura does not hold any grudge for Karin.When she cuts off her hair,Ino insists that she tell Tsunade,but she declines,not wanting to start another fight.She also said that she never wants to lower herself down to Karin's level,but is still rivals with her nonetheless.

Sakura has bright pink hair,green eyes,and fair skin.When she was younger,she had a wide forehead,which would lead other children to tease her under the name "Billboard Brow" or "Forehead Girl".Due to this she wore her bangs over her forehead,fueling the other kids' teasing by telling her she was sensitive about it,however,Ino encouraged her to wear her hair back.Her beautiful face,long legs,curvaecous figure,befits her womanly posture.At the series' beginning,her hair was waist-length,since there was a rumour that Sasuke liked girls with long hair.However,Karin cut her hair to shoulder-length.Also,her hair was very messy at the time,until her mother Mebuki helped her and cut it to make it neater.She later remained with this hairstyle throughout the series.She wears the standard Konoha Gakuen uniform at school,along with knee-length socks,and black shoes.During chapter 2,she wore a ruffled black tank top,a red blazer,a gold necklace on clear view at her neckline,a gray skirt,and sandals.During the Summer Vacations Arc,her outfits continuously vary.When her hair was longer,she tends to wear a red headband,but when Karin cut her hair,she does not wear it anymore.

Ino is one of Sakura's best friends along with Hinata, for how long is unknown but it seems that since their early childhood, since after Sakura decides to let her hair remain short, Ino has a flashback where a younger Sakura told her that Sasuke liked girls with long hair. Ino and Sakura are very close friends, it was shown from the very start of the series, on chapter 1, when Karin insulted Sakura, Ino was going to attack her, yet she was stopped by Hinata. Sakura also commented that she was jealous of Ino due to the fact that she was the kind of girl who didn't care about what everyone else could say about her, which made her really cool.Sakura always wanted to be pretty like Ino.Ino is a casanova.She likes boys who accepted her to be herself.According to Hinata,Sai,Ino's boyfriend,does not pay attention to what Ino says.He likes to talk about penis.Which made Ino reall embarrassing and made her punch him.Sakura really wants to be like Ino.Ino doesn't care about anything when people call her something mean or anything.According to Sakura's "Inner Sakura",when people tease Sakura,she always feel like she wants to die or this is the end of the world.

Hinata is one of Sakura's best friends along with Ino. Like in Ino's case, it is unknown for how long these two know each other. However, they are shown to be really good friends and care a lot about the other on multiple occations. Sakura and Hinata, specially the latter, were shown to be really shy around the boy they like, at the beginning of Ino's "date" none of them could stop stuttering. On the Hyuuga Company arc, during the fight between Naruto and Neji, it was Sakura who supported Hinata and calmed her down while her boyfriend and her cousin fought, reassuring her by saying that "it was going to be ok".

Although not much interaction is shown between Sai and Sakura, they are indeed good friends, the exact way they meet isn't revealed in the story, yet it seems obvious that they became friends after Ino starts dating Sai. On chapter 1, Sakura calls Sai"one of the coolest boys in school". On the Art Exhibition arc, Sakura comments on Sai beautiful paintings, stating that he was an incredible artist. Later on, whe Sakura leaves, Sai comments on her change, through he actually meant the growth of her breasts rather than her attitude, triggering Ino's fury.

Sakura and Sasori meet at the Art Exhibition, where he trips over and falls on top of her. However, he accidentally touches her breast while trying to stand up, and she slaps him before he has time to apologize. Ever since then, Sasori seems to be developing feelings for Sakura, he is seen touching where he was slapped with a smile. They later run into each other on their way to the Uchiha's appartment, and they go together while discussing all the way. When they arrive, they continue arguing, making Itachi really uncomfortable. Afterwards, Sasori is seen on Konoha Gakure, teaching puppetry to Ino, Sakura and Hinata. Sakura comments she entered that class to distract herself from thinking about Sasuke, and she soon changed her way of thinking about Sasori, stating that "he was actually a very charming young man".

Itachi treats Sakura as his "sister-in-law", often seen winking at her and reassuring her. Itachi has a quite good opinion about Sakura, seeing her as the person who changed Sasuke's hatred into love and kindness, as he told Sasori in chapter 5. Sakura helds high respect towards Itachi, seeing him as an intimidating yet trustworthy person, although Sasuke disagrees with this judgement, always telling Sakura to avoid talking about Itachi whenever possible.

Sakura and Karin were both in love with Sasuke for some time, for this reason they hate each other and fight on almost every encounter they have, becoming "love rivals". Through most of their fighting is just verbal, Karin proved at times that she can resort to violence in order to get Sakura away from Sasuke. Keeping in mind that Sasuke d likes long-haired girls, she cuts Sakura's hair against her will on the mall's bathroom, although she got scared of her result. After Sasuke declared his love for Sakura in public, Karin was very shocked and Sakura commented that "she didn't bother again". However, on the return to class arc, she was seen spreading rumours to complicate Sakura and Sasuke's relationship, meaning that she still hated Sakura, through she didn't know it was her who spread the rumours.

Gaara fought Sasuke with all he had and injured him pretty badly. Lee tried to stop him but Gaara was going to give Sasuke a finishing blow anyway. However, Sakura got in the way, stating that she would always protect what she loved the most. This enrages Gaara, yet Sasuke stops him. After watching Sakura defend Sasuke like that even through she was clearly outmatched in strenght, he admits that maybe love can change people and stares at Sakura, who was picking up the injured Sasuke.

She is the only female character that got into two fights: with Karin and with Gaara.

The name "Haruno" means "spring field", and the name "Sakura" means "cherry blossom", a flower which is cherished in Japan due to its beauty and its almost-tragically short life span (cherry blossoms have historically been associated with the samurai). The cherry blossom also serves as the national flower for the nation of Japan. In Japanese, "Haruno Sakura" (春野・桜) means "spring field of cherry blossoms", which may be an origin of the name. It can be also used in the game, Hanafuda, as a month card of sakura (桜, flowering cherry).

Sakura's name, when read as "Haru no Sakura" (春の桜), can also be interpreted as "cherry blossoms in spring."